Rate this Motivation build

[PsyBuster]

I would be the energy-battery for the whole party, mainly for Monks, adding to that Mending Refrain to give a small healing bonus to everyone.

16 Motivation
13 Leadership
4 Command

Zealous Anthem
For 10 seconds, the next time each ally within earshot uses a skill, that ally gains 3-10 Energy.

Aria of Zeal
For 10 seconds, the next time each ally within earshot uses a Spell, that ally gains 3-10 Energy.

Song of Purification {E}
For 20 seconds, the next 1-3 skills used by each ally within earshot remove one Condition from that ally.

Mending Refrain
For 20 seconds, target ally has +1-4 Health regeneration. This Echo is reapplied every time a Chant or Shouts ends on that ally.

Energizing Finale
For 10-30 seconds, whenever a Shout or Chant ends on a target ally, that ally gains 1-3 Energy.

"Go for the Eyes!"
For 10 seconds, the next time each ally within earshot makes an attack, that attack has an additional 30-78% chance to be a critical hit.

"Watch Yourself!"
Party members near you gain +20 armor for 5-10 seconds.

Signet of Return
Resurrect target party member with 5-13% Health and 1-3% Energy for each party member within earshot.


Is it too much based on "Energy-giving" skills ?
Would it be really useful in a party ?

[rentauri]

First maybe Im off but isnt Aria of Zeal only triggered if one uses an Attack Skill and not just any skill? That could limit its usefulness. If I am thinking that is how it works (and I fairly sure it is) I suggest combing them use only one when needed that way you get a free slot to fill in with something else. If energy bonus is the game Song of Power or maybe run into the Leadership line and pull a skill. Burning Finale might be good since you are spamming GftE and Watch Yourself.

Go For the Eyes and Watch Yourself are good as they allow you to quickly trigger your echoes or again. As to to much energy well one can never have to much and that can assist the party alot. One thing I suggest is to either knock your leadership up to 14 or lower it to 12 because as it stands none of the skills require Leadership, it is basically E-management and 13 ranks does nothing that 12 or 14 cant do.

[PsyBuster]

No, Aria of Zeal works when casting a spell and I'm sure of that, I've been using that skill for some time now.
Maybe you meant Zealous Anthem ? I didn't get it yet, so maybe GWO Wiki is wrong about that skill description, since every "Anthem" skills are activated on attack skills...

[rentauri]

Maybe you meant Zealous Anthem ? I didn't get it yet, so maybe GWO Wiki is wrong about that skill description, since every "Anthem" skills are activated on attack skills...

Yeah that is the one I meant, Im preety sure that only triggers on Attack Skills. So like I said roll it and Aria together, use only one depending on the use of the party's need. This would free up an optional slot that can be filled up with various skills.

[Forbiddian]

Zealous Anthem ---> Only attack skills ---> basically useless.
Aria of Zeal ---> Any spells ---> incredibly useful.

I would definitely drop Zealous Anthem for virtually anything. Zealous Anthem is terrible. Non-spellcasters should be able to keep track of their energy. To be honest, I'm sure that they'd much prefer to burn their enemies twice for 3 seconds than gain 10 energy. Burning Anthem also nets you energy and has a 10-second turnaround option.



About the Battery Bard... I love the idea. I play conceptually a very similar build. I've been toying around with Fall Back! and Incoming! from the Command tree. I've been long searching for a skill combination that makes Energizing Finale obsolete. I haven't found one, yet. Unfortunately, Energizing Finale is good. But try playing around with the build. I almost started screaming and tearing my own eyes out when I realized how difficult it was to keep up adrenaline when you have to stop every 5 seconds to readminister a Finale. Basically to speed up the build, I took out Go for the Eyes! and I switched around some 1-second cast shouts for Fall Back! and Incoming!

At the very least, it made the build much less of a headache to play.

[PsyBuster]

Yeah, so basically screw Zealous Anthem. Maybe I could replace it with "Never Surrender!", or as said above, Blazing Finale.

Also, are 3 Adrenaline-based-shouts too much to manage with only regular attack to power them ? I don't think "Fall Back!" or "Incoming!" would work well, because you cannot spam them to really benefit Energizing Finale...

[rentauri]

Keep Song of Resto that elite instantly gives you a secondary role of condition remover. If you attack enough keep them both, if not then drop one it really depends on the play style. If you drop on I suggest dropping Watch Yourself and making your seocndary either Monk or Mesmer. As it stands hex control will screw you, espically the necros which have two hexes designed to target shouters (one to cause Bleeding and one to stop you from shouting). Necros in the Desolation seem to enjoy spamming them.

[waywrong]

I'm assuming this is a GvG/HA oriented PvP build. I have been observing a lot of GvG matches and played battery-gon in 1 GvG match and 1 HA match, so take what I say with a grain of salt, as my experiences are severely limited. I can tell you that with the amount of energy that Energizing Finale and Aria of Zeal are putting out, you will not need to add in Never Surrender!. Even prot boon monks without e-management will have energy coming out the wazoo. I would not recommend removing Watch Yourself!, as it’s incredibly useful as damage mitigation, not to mention awesome for triggering Mending Refrain and Energizing Finale. Let your mesmers/monks deal with hexes. If you're really itching for removal, just bring hexbreaker aria, instead of splashing an entirely new secondary. Yes, it's costs 8 adren, but you're not doing much with adrenaline anyway, except spamming WY.

One skill I would consider though, is Ballad of Restoration; it really helps out your monks a lot. I have also heard of people using Finale of Restoration, but that's too much micro managing for someone who isn't exactly a regular at GvG. You could also consider doing a switch-a-roo and doing Song of Restoration as your elite, and Purifying Finale as your condition removal. But I'm guessing most warriors would prefer Song of Purification against those air eles.

[Forbiddian]

You can spam them (Incoming! and Fall Back!) much better than you can spam Watch Yourself! and Go for the Eyes!. I use Watch Yourself! but not Go for the Eyes!

Do the math. Incoming! works once every 20 seconds. Fall Back! works once every 25 seconds.

Watch Yourself! and Go for the Eyes! require 5 shots to charge up (well, the first requires four and every consecutive shot requires five). It sounds like you could cast WY! and GftE! once every 6.25 seconds. So that means that you could rotate them more than 3x each per 20 seconds. Right? WRONG! Do the math.

Firstly, you have a lot of crap to do. Every 20 seconds, Aria/Ballad of Restoration, Aria of Zeal, and Anthem of Flame x2. Now you have to drop 2-4 Energizing Finales during that time period as well. So now you're looking at about 7-10 seconds out of every 20 simply maintaining spells as it is. Remember, you need 8.75 seconds of attack just to cycle your adrenal skills once per 20 seconds.

Secondly, Spears are slow and clunky weapons. Enemies will dodge at least 1/4 spears, if not more. Intelligent teams know that every spear that they dodge is 1.75 seconds or more that you can't do anything. Remember, you need like 10-12 seconds of shooting in order to cycle your adrenal shouts once per 20 seconds.

Thirdly, with two adrenal skills, you don't have the choice NOT to use them. You're forced to try to attack enemies to try to get your shouts rolling. That means less time dodging, less time improving position (sometimes even losing tempo by having to change your shout pattern to get that extra throw in), less time with battle awareness (which is critical, you have a lot to keep track of, you don't want to get Aria of Zeal power spiked).

Fourthly (and lastly), Blindness, Guardian on the target, and all the other usual anti-melee skills will shut down two skills instead of one.

Everything that I've listed actually happens. You spend 5 seconds running, getting 2 shots in, maybe, and you look down at your skill bar and go, "OH, ****!" because all of your skill bars are cooled down, an Energizing Finale or two ran out, and people on TS are saying, "dude, where's my energy?!?" Okay, well, that doesn't really happen. But still, the thought that Incoming! doesn't rotate as fast is ludicrous. Anybody who's played the build will tell you that WY and GftE only go off like once every 15-20 seconds, at the most (averaging more like 1/30 seconds). With just WY! you streamline your build. You can spend time meandering around to charge WY (which is good in its own merit as a way to reduce damage taken). It also only requires 7 seconds of attacking per cast instead of 8.75. Fast math reveals that the second adrenal skill only makes your adrenal 1.6x as effective because they both penalize each other.


I guess comparing only on Rotations/minute isn't fair. Incoming! is much more than a shout every 20 seconds (unlike GftE, which does basically nothing, it adds like 40-50 damage, spread out and mitigatable). Incoming brings spike pressure off of your monks. It neuters SF spike like nothing else (one of the most popular builds). If you're not facing a Spike group (facing balanced or thumpers or something) you can cast it strictly as a rotation shout. With rank 9, assuming that your opponents randomly distribute their damage, it reduces the damage that your party takes by 12.5%.

The same argument could be made for Fall Back! (albeit it's a much worse skill, it rotates as fast as GftE and WY do). With rank 10, it gives 8 seconds of run (plus a heal). That's a LOT. Sprint Warriors can't even catch your backline.

The disadvantage obviously is that it dilutes your build. With a major and three minors, you can get 7 Spear, 13 Motivation, 12 Leadership, 9 Command, and 2 Tactics. I don't have a max damage req 7 spear, unfortunately, so my damage suffers a little bit. I still have more hps than Shock Axe, though.



EDIT: Totally new topic. Condition/Hex Removal. Depending on your group organization, it's not your job or it's stupidly your job just because you're a backliner. Song of Purification/Cauterizing Signet are poor replacements for Monk abilities. Song of Purification requires skill use. The last time I checked, Warriors caught in SF spam weren't very big on using Healing Signet or Frenzy to remove the burning. They also don't want to use skills while blinded to remove the blind or crippled (particularly covered blinds). Admittedly, any Shock Axe would gladly Shock a random player to dump the Blind. However, they'd much rather if the Monk just stripped it with a nonelite skill than have you spend your elite giving them a difficult choice.

Short answer: it's the Monk's job. There's a reason why you looked at all of our Condition removal with a scowl. Monks have condition removal down pat.

Hex Removal... I don't recall seeing any. And I'm not giving up WY just so my Monk can be lazy. He has infinite energy. What the hell else does he want? Holy Veil is extremely good with a Battery Bard. Blessed Light has almost no drawback with the amount of energy that the Monk has. Conditions/Hexes are the Monk's job. Or maybe your team is feeling generous and will have one of the casters split to Mo and carry Mend Condition. Either way, your build is way too packed full of skills to drop anything, and WY is way too good to change to Monk just for Mend Condition or Remove Hex.

[waywrong]

I hear what you are saying with energy shouts vs. adren shouts, but dude, Fall Back is sooooooooo expensive! Incoming is an awesome elite, no doubt, but that requires you to sink points into Command as well. Song/Ballad/Aria of Restoration is Motivation linked, and does a pretty good job keeping pressure off your monk as well. Like you said, they already have unlimited energy, and you're providing them with a 78-180+ heal buffer whenever one/both of them go off. With restoration chants, aria of zeal + WY I have yet to see any casters needing energy.

[NeferJackal]

Some points:

Energizing Finale is awesome for energy recovery on your monks as you spam shouts. But the problem is that there is NO indication for if they are affected by it, leaving you to guess. And you can quickly loose track of it in the heat of battle.

If playing HA, 12 Leadership is a must, as it will make each partywide shout or chant return 1 energy per partymember, up to a cap of 6 energy. And HA is 6man groups.

Watch Yourself and Go For the Eyes is great for energy management, but, do consider bringing an ias increaser like Aggressive Refrain, so you can speed up the rate which you peck at foes, and thusly gaining adrenaline faster. And in return more energy for yourself.


While I do tend to run Command builds, because of the trouble with maintaining Finales on allies, I like to bring Vicious Attack, Go for the Eyes and Aggressive Refrain for a solid core combo. While I only run 9 spear mastery, the damage doesn't matter. Because Vicious Attack takes advantage of a skyhigh Command to fairly reliably inflict a deep wound on a target, which then will help my party beside the shouts I spam.


Signet of Return is a PvE skill, it is far too slow for places like HA, and as you stand there, it is just begging to be interupted with a knockdown or distracting shot.


You should consider Signet of Synergy. It is free healing for a friend and yourself. Heals for 104 to both at 16 motivation every 10 seconds. Though personally i think SoS could use a buff, either decreased recharge time, or increased healing. As it is the only direct healing ability a Paragon has, everything else depending on allies using skills to get healed.

[waywrong]

I'm really not liking SoS: sure, it's free 200+ total heal, but the recharge is way too long. More often than not, it's taking up a skill slot on my bar, sitting there recharging, with me wishing I brought something else instead. Also, most of the time I use it is to heal a teammate who is in trouble, or as a self heal, and it ends up in a 100+ overheal. Very rarely do I ever get to use even 75% of the full effect. Plus, the restriction on it is just terrible. Pure spike heal monks will have no problem, but plenty of monks use enchantments. And most of the time, they won't remember not to enchant you, even if you tell them ahead of time you have SoS.

I look at it this way, I might as well take a chant or a shout that helps out the monk with energy management, because a monk can definitely outheal SoS in the 10 seconds it takes to recharge. And the shout/chant will probably help out others in the party too.